Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
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Recent studies about health care in America show troubling trends, especially in states with large rural and relatively low-income populations. While the United States continues to spend far more than any other developed country on health care on a per capita basis and as a percentage of gross domestic product, many states, especially in the south and Midwest, are losing ground in key areas that pertain to life expectancy. The Commonwealth Fund’s just-released 2018 Scorecard on State Health System Performance, w...
The public has heard relatively little from Washington in recent months about the former President Barack Obama’s health care law, The Affordable Care Act, but that silence doesn’t mean elected officials have forgotten about it or that its future is certain. Republican lawmakers still have said the plan forces Americans to buy health insurance that they may not want or need and that many may not be able to afford. Democrats have said its benefits outweigh any downside. These days, the battleground over the law’s fate has s...
Access to dental care is a serious and worsening health problem in rural America, but now many states are beginning to enact legislation that could ease the pain. The federal government said 63 million Americans live in dental deserts – areas where few if any dentists practice – and that more than half of those are in rural areas. Hundreds of counties throughout the United States have no dentist, meaning residents often have to drive long distances for dental care. Nebraska is among the states with a severe shortage of den...
What happens in Idaho in the coming weeks undoubtedly will not stay in Idaho. What happens there could make a big difference in how much people around the country pay for health insurance – or whether they can even get insurance. Idaho’s Republican governor, C. L. “Butch” Otter, signed an executive order in January that, if not blocked by the federal government, will do what Republicans in Washington have not been able to do: turn the clock back to the days before the former President Barack Obama’s health care law, at l...
One of the selling points for the tax bill President Trump signed into law a few weeks ago is that it will spur job growth because corporations will use money they otherwise would have paid in taxes to hire more workers. But for rural areas and small towns, one provision of the new law may result in the closure of one of their biggest employers – their hospital. Rural hospitals in general operate on much thinner margins than most big city hospitals, margins so thin that dozens have been forced to close in recent years. In fac...
One of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act to Medicare beneficiaries has been the gradual closing of a big and costly gap called the “doughnut hole” in the prescription drug program, Medicare Part D. By the end of 2020 – if “Obamacare” is not repealed or altered substantially by Congress – the doughnut hole will be completely closed. In 2010, people hit the “doughnut-hole” coverage gap when the total amount they and their plan had paid for prescription drugs reached $2,800 in a coverage year. At that point, people had to...
